The historic Metro club in Chicago had undertaken a major audio upgrade in 2021, updated the PA but not the actual audio consoles. Marking its 40th anniversary, the club now has new desks at front of house and monitors.
The Metro staff approached John Wagner of Ayre Productions with a view to explore options. ‘They inquired about Allen & Heath’s dLive platform,’ he says, ‘so we set them up with a demo.’
Local sales rep Shawn McLoughlin brought in two A&H dLive S5000 surfaces for the team to try out: ‘dLive was leaps and bounds better than what they were using previously,’ Wagner recalls. ‘They really liked the sound and the workflow.’
‘We’re a small venue that hosts a lot of big acts,’ says Ben Gordon, the venue’s monitor engineer. ‘We’re always trying to minimise our footprint without sacrificing functionality. dLive hit all the marks for us.’
Justin Yates runs front of house, and was drawn to the platform’s flexibility and ease of use: ‘We get a lot of guest engineers, some of whom aren’t familiar with digital consoles,’ he says. ‘With dLive, it’s easy to get them up to speed and mixing a show in a couple of minutes.’
The team eventually settled on two dual-screen dLive C3500 surfaces, along with a pair of CDM48 MixRacks. The front of house and monitor dLive systems are each equipped with AES output cards, which allow them to feed the venue’s amplifiers using digital AES/EBU signals. ‘That’s been a long goal of ours – to be digital as much as possible,’ Gordon notes.
Both Gordon and Yates were impressed by the dLive’s Deep processing and compressor emulators. ‘It’s the first time on a digital desk that the compressors actually sound different,’ Gordon says. ‘On other digital consoles, you can switch through compressors without really being able to tell the difference. With dLive compressor models, you can actually hear the different characteristics. It’s been fun using them to blend sources into the mix.’
For monitors, Gordon likes using the dLive’s Source Expander. ‘It helps to clean up vocals for in-ear mixes. If you get the sidechain settings just right, you can eliminate a lot of noise bleeding into the lead vocal mic without missing a lot of articulation.’
Following a lull during the Covid-19 pandemic, Metro has re-emerged as an A-list venue with an intimate fee, recently hosting big name artists including Metallica, Green Day and Fallout Boy.
‘Front of house is about 30ft from the stage,’ Yates says. ‘It feels like you’re right up there with the acts. I think that’s what makes it such a unique experience at Metro.’
More: www.allen-heath.com
